GEIPAN Case 2009-07-02361 — RIXHEIM (68) 26.07.2009

Brief

This document is the regional geographic annex (Annexe 01) attached to GEIPAN's D1-classified case from 26 July 2009, in which a witness on his terrace in Rixheim, Alsace, observed a white luminous point travel south-to-north for 7-8 seconds before apparently changing direction and accelerating. The annex consists of four annotated aerial images establishing site context: the witness's home sits in a flat Alsatian plain more than 20km from any significant terrain, within the approach and takeoff corridor of Basel-Mulhouse International Airport (~20km SE), and approximately 1km from the Habsheim aerodrome. GEIPAN's geographic analysis systematically maps potential conventional explanations — proximate air traffic, railway, and open sightlines — without resolving the case.

Metadata

Agency

GEIPAN / CNES

Release

2007-03-22

Type

PDF • .pdf

Length

4 pages

Classification

D1 (GEIPAN scale — unexplained, low anomaly)

Programs

GEIPAN, GEPAN, SEPRA

Tags

white luminous point, direction change, acceleration, naked-eye, Rixheim, Alsace, France, 2009, GEIPAN, D1

Key points

• The observation occurred at Rixheim (68170), Alsace, on 26 July 2009 at approximately 23h45 local time, per the annex header — a discrepancy of roughly 85 minutes from the 22h20 figure cited in the case description.p.1
• The witness's home is in a suburban residential area (style pavillonnaire) adjacent to a railway line on the flat Alsace plain; the nearest mountains (Vosges to the west, Black Forest to the east) are more than 20km away.p.1
• Basel-Mulhouse International Airport (Blotzheim) is approximately 20km to the southeast of the observation site.p.2
• The airport's runways are broadly oriented toward Rixheim, placing the witness's location within or near the approach and takeoff corridor depending on wind conditions.p.3
• The Franco-German, Franco-Swiss, and Swiss-German borders converge along the Rhine in close proximity to the site — the observation occurred in a trinational geographic nexus.p.3
• The Mulhouse-Habsheim aerodrome is approximately 1km from the witness's home, making it the closest aviation facility to the observation point.p.4
• GEIPAN assigned this case classification D1: the phenomenon is described as 'peu étrange' (not highly anomalous) yet remains unexplained.p.1

Verbatim

• La maison du témoin se situe dans l'ellipse rouge. On peut remarquer que la zone est urbanisée sur le style pavillonnaire, qu'il y a proximité d'une ligne ferroviaire et que la région correspond à la plaine d'Alsace donc les montagnes les plus proches (Vosges à l'Ouest et Forêt Noire (Allemagne) à l'Est) sont éloignées de plus de 20km.

  p.1

• Nous remarquons que les pistes sont globalement orientées en direction de Rixheim (cadre rouge) ce qui indique que cette localité se trouve à proximité du couloir d'approche ou d'envol, lorsque le vent correspond.

  p.3

• La ligne jaune correspond aux frontière Franco-Allemande, le long du Rhin, Franco-Suisse et Suisse-Allemande.

  p.3

• L'aérodrome de Habsheim se situe à proximité immédiate de Rixheim puisque distant d'environ 1 km du domicile du témoin.

  p.4

Most interesting

• The annex header places the observation at 23h45 local time; the war.gov case description says 22h20 — an 85-minute discrepancy within the same case file that GEIPAN does not address in this document.
• GEIPAN is the UAP investigation unit of CNES, the French national space agency, and is among the few government bodies worldwide that publishes individual case files — including unresolved ones — in a public database.
• D1 is GEIPAN's lowest anomaly tier: the case is formally 'unexplained' but considered not highly strange, suggesting investigators found no classical explanation while also finding nothing that strongly resisted one.
• The witness sat at a triple-border geographic nexus (France, Germany, Switzerland) in proximity to two separate aviation facilities — one international — and the case remains open under that context.
• The release date listed in the war.gov metadata (2007-03-22) predates the 2009 observation by more than two years; this is almost certainly a cataloguing error in the source listing.